Neurorealism
Fallacy in popular science
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Neurorealism (also referred to as neuro-realism or neuroessentialism) is a concept within popular science where individuals ascribe more meaning to psychological phenomena merely because they are backed up by brain research, including brain imaging.[1][2][3][4]
Etymology
The term "neurorealism" was coined in 2005 by neuroscientists Eric Racine, Ofek Bar-Ilan, and Judy Illes. They noticed that media outlets were uncritical in their analysis of fMRI evidence in support of psychological processes, such as the relief from pain via acupuncture, political beliefs, and even pleasure from eating fatty foods.[2] They concluded that neurorealism is "grounded in the belief that fMRI enables us to capture a ‘visual proof ’ of brain activity, despite the enormous complexities of data acquisition and image processing". The researchers encouraged journalists to be more skeptical of advances related to neuroscience, given that neurological claims tend to be credible to lay readers.[2]
Researcher David Gruber commented, "currently, no research on neuro-realism examines the variable rhetorical roles of such statements, that is, how they support specialized arguments or enhance social functions across genres of public communication." He stated that neurorealism was a result of the over simplification of difficult scientific information.[1]
One group of researchers however concluded that "we argue that the “neurorealism” effect is weak at best, and highly context sensitive. This is not to discount the value of within-subjects designs for this area of study, since it is often the only way to conduct studies that result in nuanced differences in how stimuli affect individuals’ perceptions."[5]
In other research
Psychologist Scott Lilienfeld commented that neuro-realism has a potential to affect jurors in criminal trials with defendants afflicted with psychopathy. As a result, juries may place undue weight on brain imaging, even though differences in the brains of psychopaths and non-psychopaths do not necessarily imply that the differences are "congenital, immutable, or directly causative of behavioral deficits".
According to Lilienfeld and others, arguments that psychopathic brain deficits negate criminal responsibility "require leaps" beyond scientific understanding, as brain activity during an unrelated activity does not explain a specific criminal act. Even among those diagnosed with psychopathy, criminal acts may reflect many factors beyond the personality disorder.[6] Lilienfeld and his colleagues levied criticisms towards scientific journalism as a whole for engaging in "neurohype", or misrepresenting scientific findings, typically with words such as "breakthrough", "miracle", "cure", "revolutionary", "groundbreaking", and "marvel".[7]